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Comment by jmspring | Hacker News Reader

Some years back Santa Cruz updated the meter maids / parking enforcement to GPS enabled smart devices and they would still drive around, get out, take pictures (when someone was in violation). My wife and I were sitting outside a restaurant where such a vehicle was being photo'd. This particular meter person was known to be .. not nice. While said person was behind vehicle (old vw bus) and out of site of the meter, we slipped a couple of quarters in and got back to our seat.

Watching the reaction (they already had a couple of photos) was priceless. Said person questioned about 3 different groups (myself included) and all played dumb and had a good laugh when done. The vehicle owner saw the interaction from the farmer's market across the way and bought a round for a couple of tables.

Santa Cruz has a history of meter scofflawism - https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/mr-twister-s-mission-of-...

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I know someone who deflated the tires on their Jeep to get around a violation ticket for bumper height (i.e. the kind of thing they only ever enforce as a pretext for fishing). He asked the cop to re-measure. Cop was confused and mad.

It's amazing how mechanized scofflaws believe they are uniquely above the law, and that dodging law enforcement is a personal victory. I think it's a sad commentary on the deterioration of public behavior in America (and this is almost exclusively an American thing ... in Germany a lifted Jeep would be seized and destroyed on its first day on the road.)

>It's amazing how mechanized scofflaws believe they are uniquely above the law, and that dodging law enforcement is a personal victory. I think it's a sad commentary on the deterioration of public behavior in America (and this is almost exclusively an American thing ... in Germany a lifted Jeep would be seized and destroyed on its first day on the road.)

Don't be obtuse. It's not about the mechanization. It's about the capricious enforcement. If you weren't so blinded by bias you'd see that.

I hope you get dogpiled for jaywalking or some other "we only ever enforce it as a pretext" violation. It might knock your moral compass back into calibration.

It won’t be obtuse if a loved one were to be hit by this vehicle with a dangerously high bumper.

The old letter-of-the-law vs intent of the same. If you never met the person who set the intent in place, you only have the letter.

Absolutely nobody is confused about the intent of bumper height limits.

Oh yes, I'm sure that would be normal in, checks notes, oh you've gotta be joking, Germany, a country certainly not known for a recent proclivity for dangerous authoritarianism.

Think the mechanized scofflaws are bad, as a cyclist, maybe self propelled two wheelers are quite random in the laws they do/do not follow.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/05/10/cyclists...

I didn't saw about quantity, just cyclists can be unpredictable - I bike several thousand miles a year. When I used to commute to San Francisco, my order of concern on the road was cyclists, muni, cabs, everyone else.

And yet drivers kill several dozen, permanently maim hundreds, and injured thousands every year in San Francisco alone. I only know of one case where a pedestrian died after being struck by a bicycle.

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